Learning Opportunities

This puzzle can be solved using the following concepts. Practice using these concepts and improve your skills.

Statement

This is a league-based game.

For this challenge, multiple leagues for the same game are available. Once you have proven yourself against the first Boss, you will access a higher league and extra rules will be available.

Initial rules

In this league, you will be introduced to the game of Patchwork. Now let's learn what the game turn looks like and how you pay for tetris-like patches using your time token.

The Goal

Become the master of patchworking by filling your quilt canvas with patches. Be careful! Every patch costs you a few Buttons, and it also takes some Time to sew it on your canvas. Those are your most valuable resources.

This game is a port of the 2 player board game Patchwork.

My thanks to Butanium for his help with the custom interaction module (zooming to patches on mouse hover).

Rules

This is a turn-based game, but players do not necessarily alternate between turns. The player furthest behind on the Timeline takes his turn. This may result in a player taking multiple turns in a row before his opponent can take one. If there are both Time tokens on the same spot, the player that played last takes his turn.

The game starts with a pre-shuffled deck of 33 patches. All patches are placed on the table and are visible to both players.

Your goal is to collect more Buttons than your opponent and to cover as much of your quilt board with patches as possible. Uncovered squares on the quilt board will cost you 2 Buttons per piece at the end of the game.

On your turn, you carry out one of the following actions:

Advance and Receive Buttons using SKIP command
Take and Place a Patch using PLAY command

If you use PLAY incorrectly, SKIP will be used instead.

Advance and Receive Buttons - the SKIP command

Your Time token will move on the Timeline so that it occupies the space directly in front of your opponent's Time token.

Take and Place a Patch - the PLAY command

This action consists of a few steps:

Choose from the available Patches and place it on your quilt board
Pay the depicted number of Buttons to the supply
Move your Time token on the time board by a number of spaces as depicted on the label.

A patch can be placed anywhere on the quilt board as long as it won't cover already placed patches.

Timeline

The Timeline consists of a starting point and 19 time points. Regardless of the action you take, you always move your time token on the Timeline.

End of the game and scoring

The game ends after both time tokens reach the last point of the Timeline. If a time token were to move past the last space, it simply stops on the last space.

Starting with 200 points

Subtract 2 points for each empty space on your quilt board

The player with the higher score wins. In case of a tie, the player who gets to the final time point first wins.

Victory Conditions

You have more points at the end of the game or
You scored the same number of points, but you finished first

Defeat Conditions

Unknown command (only SKIP or PLAY are allowed)
Your opponent has more points at the end of the game or he has the same number of points and finishes first

Expert Rules

The UI supports single-line message bubbles. Anything after the last valid entry is considered a message.
The patch with id 32 and OO shape is always last in the deck after initial shuffling as per official rules.
Source code on GitHub (Kotlin).
Design on Figma made by me. Feel free to do whatever you want with the assets.
Official board game version on Publisher's site.
There are some Expert Mode fields (if you don't know what Expert Mode is ask in forum/discord)
Game is CG Brutaltester compatible. Compiled referee can be found on releases page of game repository. Instructions in readme.

Game Input/Output

Initialization Input

Line 1: integer incomeEvents how many Button Income events are there on the Timeline (always 0 for this league)

Line 2: incomeEvents integers of incomeTime = when the Button Income event will occur

Line 3: integer patchEvents how many Special Patch events are there on the Timeline (always 0 for this league)

Line 4: patchEvents integers of patchTime = when the Special Patch event will occur

Game turn Input

Line 1: 3 integers myButtons = amount of Buttons you currently own; myTime = how far is your token on the Timeline; myEarning = how much you will earn during Button Income event (always 0 for this league)

Line 2-10: 9 lines representing rows of your board - O is taken field . is empty

Line 11: 3 integers opponentButtons = amount of Buttons your opponent currently owns; opponentTime = how far is your opponent's token on the Timeline; opponentEarning = how much your opponent will earn during Button Income event (always 0 for this league)

Line 12-20: 9 lines representing rows of opponent board - O is taken field . is empty

Line 21: patches - count of patches not yet used (you can play only the first 3 of these)

Next patches lines: patchId patchEarning patchButtonPrice patchTimePrice patchShape

Next line: integer specialPatchId: ignore (always 0 for this league)

Next line: integer opponentMoves: how many moves your opponet played since your last move

Next opponentMoves lines: opponentMove - move description (SKIP or PLAY with all its attributes except message)

To describe all fields of patch:

patchId - patch identifier in range 0 - 32
patchEarning - how much will this patch earn during each Button Income event (ignore for this league)
patchButtonPrice - how much buttons this patch costs
patchTimePrice - how much time this patch costs
patchShape - single string representing patch shape as follows: | separates rows of patch. Each rows consists of . and O characters. O means current square is taken by this patch.

For example: patchShape O.O|OOO|O.O represents H shaped patch

Output for one Game Turn

A single line with either of 2 actions:

SKIP
PLAY patchId x y

Example:

PLAY
patchId
x and y - coordinates of top/left corner of your patch

PLAY 3 1 2 - places patch with id 3 on position 1 2 of you quilt board.

Constraints

Duration of first turn - 1000ms
Duration of game turn - 100ms

Join

A higher resolution is required to access the IDE